Don't have an account?

Favorite Schools

Favorite Teams

Major League Baseball Playoffs 2013: Why is the Boston Red Sox offense so tough to stop?

David Price, David Ortiz, Jose Molina

Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz watches his second home run of the night off Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher David Price, left, in front of Rays catcher Jose Molina, right, in the eighth inning in Game 2 of baseball's American League division series Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

There are Boston Red Sox fans, and then there are Boston Red Sox fans who are also baseball fans.

If you count yourself among the latter, then you've probably been watching some of the other postseason action.

There are three other divisional series taking place. In the American League, the Oakland A's are playing the Detroit Tigers. Over in the senior circuit, the Pittsburgh Pirates are taking on the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Los Angeles Dodgers -- with a roster that includes some notable ex-Red-Sox -- are playing the Atlanta Braves.

As of Monday morning none of those series will be concluded in three games, some have already played three games without reaching a conclusion. The Tigers and A's are knotted at one win a piece, which means that it will take at least four games to conclude that best-of-five series.

The lack of a three-game conclusion is not really the most notable thing about the other three divisional series.

Here's why.

Top-to-bottom, no team in all of baseball, or at least all of the current collection of postseason baseball teams, has a lineup as disciplined, as patient or as tough to get easy outs against, as the Boston Red Sox.

All season long, and really ever since former general manager Theo Epstein took over the team, the Red Sox have preached the benefits of working the count, taking pitches and not giving your opponent easy outs. It all sounds very logical, and it is. It isn't nearly as easy to put into practice as it is to just talk about.

The 2013 Red Sox won 97 games, but every other team that is still playing baseball won over 90 games.

One could make the case that the Red Sox are the best team in baseball. If that's your thesis, there are plenty who would not argue with you, but there are also plenty of people who would at least ask you "why?"

The Red Sox don't have that singular dominant starting pitcher. There's no Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, David Price, Max Scherzer or Adam Wainwright. There might not even be a Sonny Gray. The A's young starter lacks the resume of the other pitchers mentioned, but clearly has the potential to be nearly as dominant.

Then again, shutting down that Red Sox lineup is something that is really tough to do. The Red Sox have a clear advantage over the National League teams. After all those teams send their pitcher to the plate. The Red Sox send David Ortiz. Ortiz may end up as the first designated hitter to be admitted to Cooperstown.

He's not the Red Sox only advantage, though. In fact, he's just one of nine tough outs that Red Sox manager John Farrell gets to pencil in on a nightly basis.

In baseball world that relies to much on pitch counts, the Boston Red Sox are a team with a lineup designed to succeed in the present.

In 2013, the best starting pitchers, no matter how good they are, no matter how dominant, are used with strict pitch count limits in mind. Barring a perfect game or a no-hitter, that starting pitcher takes the mound and has about 100, or maybe 120 pitches to get the job done.

If he's at 120 pitches after eight innings, then that's great. If he's at 120 pitches after six innings. That's not so great. Even if the game is low-scoring and close (maybe the Red Sox are losing 4-2 or winning 3-1) it doesn't matter. That starting pitcher is in all likelihood heading to the dugout, and a collection of relief pitchers who are almost always less talented, will be counted on to finish off the job.

The Red Sox make starting pitchers work. The starting pitchers know this, they prepare for it and thus, to an extent, the Red Sox are in the head of a starting pitcher before he ever takes the mound.

The knowledge that the Red Sox are going to try and force you to throw a ton of pitches means that the opposing pitchers will try and prevent that from happening.

That can back-fire though. The best way to combat the Red Sox strategy is to throw strikes, and get ahead in the count. That has its own set of risks. Throwing the ball over the plate is nice, except that, when the Red Sox swing their bats, they tend to make solid contact. They get a lot hits, and, as was shown this past Saturday, the team doesn't need home runs to score runs.

David Ortiz's two mammoth home runs garnered a ton of attention. They were both solo shots. They accounted for two of the team's seven runs.

The first run the Red Sox scored was far less spectacular, but every bit as important.

Jacoby Ellsbury led off the game with a bloop single, Price had gotten ahead in the count 0-1, and on the second pitch of the at-bat Ellsbury reached out and lofted a single into shallow right field.

Price was throwing strikes, and the Red Sox weren't going to sit in the batters box as benevolent observers.

Ellsbury would come around to score and give the Red Sox a 1-0 lead. The bases were empty when David Ortiz strode to the plate with two outs. After Price fell behind 1-0, Ortiz probably felt fairly confident that Price would want to throw a strike. After all, Ortiz is a tough guy to strike out. He's known for being patient, and with the bases empty, the last thing a starting pitcher wants to do is put a runner on base and extend the first inning.

Price obliged by throwing a strike, and Ortiz was nice enough to deposit the ball into the Red Sox bullpen in right-center field.

Getting hits is one way that the Red Sox win the battle. Even more frustrating is that the Red Sox can win battles without getting a hit.

Fast-forward to the bottom of the fourth inning. The Red Sox were already winning 4-1. Price's pitch count wasn't that high. The Red Sox had been aggressive and they had made Price pay for throwing strikes. He had allowed four runs and the Red Sox had five hits. Price was probably sensing that the Red Sox were not going to sit and watch as he threw strikes. Leading off the fourth, Price issued his first walk of the game.

When Red Sox third baseman Will Middlebrooks came to the plate there was one out, and the Red Sox had a runner on second. Of all the Red Sox regular starters, Middlebrooks has probably struggled to embrace the Red Sox offensive philosophy of patience at the plate more than anyone.

His early season impatience earned him a demotion to the minors. Middlebrooks was eventually brought back up to the majors, and while he's still not the Red Sox most patient hitter, he is showing signs of improvement.

After falling behind 1-2 to Price, Middlebrooks battled. He worked the count to 2-2, then he proceeded to foul off three straight pitches before being retired on a ground out to third.

The result was not ideal, but Middlebrooks still succeeded in forcing Price to throw seven pitches. Is that frustrating?

Price may, or may not admit it, but think about it. If Middlebrooks is ostensibly one of the easier outs in the Red Sox lineup, and it takes a reigning Cy Young winner seven pitches to retire him, then that might make a pitcher get a little antsy to retire some of the other batters a little more efficiently.

That just might be a part of the reason why when another one of the allegedly weaker hitting members of the Red Sox -- Stephen Drew -- worked a five-pitch, 2-2 count, Price threw a ball that simply got too much of the strike zone. Drew pounced on it, lacing an opposite-field triple to left that scored the Red Sox fifth run of the day.

Price would complete the fourth inning down 5-1. He had thrown 63 pitches, probably more than he would have liked, but not an absurdly high number. He had succeeded in keeping his pitch count somewhat low, but he had paid a real price for that. He was losing 5-1.

The Red Sox lineup presents major league pitchers with a real dilemma. It is a "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario.

Throw strikes and they'll hit you, don't throw strikes and the Red Sox will gladly take walks. In 2013, the Red Sox were third in all of baseball in drawing walks. They ranked first in on-base percentage.

It might sound easy, and logical, but watching other teams that have won over 90 games play, it becomes apparent that it is not nearly as easy as the Red Sox make it look.

Saturday night, the Oakland A's did a nice job of forcing Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander to throw pitches. By the end of the seventh inning, he had amassed 117 of them. Of course, the A's hadn't even scored a run, and Verlander had 11 strikeouts.

The A's went on to win that game. Not really because they had beaten Verlander. It was the Tigers' inability to score against A's starting pitcher Sonny Gray, or get his pitch count high enough to force A's manager Bob Melvin to go his bullpen, that was the reason the A's eventually prevailed.

Remember back in August when the Red Sox played the Los Angeles Dodgers? The Red Sox took two of three on the road from baseball's hottest team. The Dodgers have a very good offense. But they're not nearly as disciplined as the Red Sox.

During the regular season, the Dodgers ranked 15th in the majors in drawing walks. They were 17th in number of pitches seen. The Red Sox were No.1 in that category. In all three games, the Red Sox starting pitchers were able to pitch deep into their outings.

The Dodgers did win Game 1 of the series. Dodgers starter Ricky Nolasco quieted the Sox bats and pitched eight scoreless innings. That doesn't happen often. Red Sox starter John Lackey was nearly as good. He went eight innings and only allowed two runs while throwing only 97 pitches.

The Red Sox won the next two games. Jon Lester pitched into the eighth inning of a 4-2 victory. Jake Peavy followed that up with a complete game 8-1 win. LA's starting pitchers on those days were both out the game by the start of the sixth inning.

Ultimately, just forcing the pitcher to throw pitches is only half the battle. Two of the other teams who ranked in the top five in pitches seen in 2013, the Oakland A's and recently eliminated Cleveland Indians, are playoff teams. The other two teams, the New York Mets and Minnesota Twins, weren't even close to making the playoffs.

It is critical that lineups have enough talent throughout to make opposing pitchers pay a price for throwing strikes, and pay a price for putting runners on base.

The Red Sox have that. It isn't just the guys who start. When the Red Sox take the field Monday night in Tampa, Daniel Nava will get his first start of the 2013 postseason. He hasn't even had an at-bat yet. The guy who has had to wait until Game 3 to even sniff the batter's box, is a guy who hit .303 with a .385 on-base percentage during the regular season.

The Red Sox scored 12 runs on Friday, and seven on Saturday. Saturday's lineup had backup catcher David Ross behind the plate. Monday night, the Red Sox will likely put starter Jarrod Saltalamacchia back into the lineup.

It takes a full team effort and commitment to accomplish what the Red Sox have done on offense in 2013. The 25,667 pitches the Red Sox saw in 2013 were the most of any team this century. The team that came closest to that number? The 2004 Red Sox, who forced opposing pitchers to throw 25,665 pitches.